


prodigal son

by envysparkler



Series: Reverse Robins [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Caning, Damian finally uses his words, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lazarus Pit, Reverse Robins, Whump, lucky for them Dick is on the case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: Tim should’ve known better.  Ra’s was ruthless and vindictive – if he couldn’t have his prize, then no one else could either.“Robin,” Tim rasped out – the warehouse was wavering around them, bodies lying at strange angles in all directions.  “Run.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Series: Reverse Robins [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017735
Comments: 94
Kudos: 733





	prodigal son

Tim’s first mistake was agreeing to help Jason with a case.

No, Tim’s first mistake was getting out of bed in the morning, lured by the good coffee that Jason got from that corner cart that always packed up long before Tim had the energy to crawl out of bed, but the mistake that mattered was agreeing to help Jason with a case.

Jason had discovered that the smuggling operation he was investigating had a base ten minutes out from Bludhaven, Bruce had told him flat-out that he wasn’t allowed to leave the city by himself, Nightwing was off-world on Justice League business, and Tim was vindictively pleased at the thought of working so close to Damian’s territory.

Tim’s second mistake, or his third – it was getting a bit difficult to count with his head ringing – was letting himself get complacent. Sure, it’d been nearly two years since he escaped Ra’s, no League assassin had come from his head, he’d successfully left Gotham a number of times, and maybe, just maybe, the Demon’s Head got bored enough to go searching for another heir.

Tim should’ve known better. Ra’s was ruthless and vindictive – if _he_ couldn’t have his prize, then no one else could either.

Damian had managed to scrape free, but he was Bruce’s son, and even Ra’s didn’t dare to take what was Batman’s.

“Robin,” Tim rasped out – the warehouse was wavering around them, bodies lying at strange angles in all directions. “ _Run_.”

Jason’s face was pale beneath his mask, and there was blood winding through his hair. “I’m not leaving you!” he hissed, his hands pressed firmly to the jagged wound in Tim’s side. The blade had been poisoned, it didn’t much matter if he bled out.

_You fool_ , echoed in Tim’s head, and there was no time left to berate Jason, because the world was inching towards darkness.

_Leave_ , the last of Tim’s consciousness begged, because he knew what was coming next.

* * *

Tim opened his eyes to green, already choking. Fire wound its way through his limbs and he jerked up, flailing, shocked back to sudden clarity. He pulled himself out of the Pit with trembling fingers and forced his gaze up, green easing in around the edges as the room took a smoky haze.

He thought Ra’s had learnt his lesson after Tim had routed his operations and left several bases burning in his escape. He thought he was _done_ with waking up to the taste of rage on his tongue and a self-satisfied smile on the face of one of the most dangerous people in the world.

“Timothy,” Ra’s said, viciously pleased, “I am glad to have you back.”

Tim straightened, the stiffness of newly healed muscle and bone offset by the near-blinding fury. This time, he was going to mount his head on a pike. “I thought I made it clear that I’m not going to be your heir,” Tim snarled, “And that you’ll never be able to keep me prisoner forever.”

“Your mind is a truly a treasure, little detective,” Ra’s smiled, “It did take me awhile to figure out what could possibly keep you chained. And then it struck me.”

He stepped aside and waved forward two of his operatives. And –

Tim swallowed, thick and dry. _I told you to run_ , he screamed mentally.

“Stand at my side, be my right hand, and his fate is yours,” Ra’s said. Tim focused on the knife pressed to his brother’s neck, sharp and glinting wet with poison. A painful death, but not a slow one. Not yet.

“Or don’t,” Ra’s continued, “Disobey me, disrespect me, and I will enjoy finding out how many times I can kill the gutter rat before he begs me to let him stay dead.”

Jason’s eyes were wide and blue, and Tim would do anything in his power to make sure they didn’t change color.

He took a wavering step forward, his gaze fixed to his brother’s face, memorizing his features, the redness rimming his eyes, the bruises, the flakes of dried blood, the trembling as his arms were restrained behind his back – the way Jason was staring at Tim like he had an answer, a plan, some sort of plot to get him out.

But that was the problem. You couldn’t outwit Ra’s al Ghul. You couldn’t outthink a man that had been alive for _centuries_.

Tim had escaped the last time with a hefty dose of improvisation and little will to survive his attempt.

He turned away from Jason and dropped to his knees at the megalomaniac’s feet. “I will serve the Demon’s Head,” he uttered blankly.

* * *

Jason stared at the carefully arranged dessert on his plate and swallowed past the rising lump in his throat.

It was beautiful, a gleaming confection of caramel and nuts and thinly sliced wafers, and it tasted like ash on his tongue. It could be poisoned, it could be drugged, and there was absolutely nothing Jason could do about it. He was outnumbered a hundred to one, stripped of all his gear, and trapped in a base high in the mountains with guards watching his every move.

Jason took a deep inhale and winced when it hitched. He wanted his family. He wanted Bruce. He wanted his _brothers_.

Tim was on the other side of the table, eating careful, meticulous bites of the dessert, but he might as well have been back in Gotham for all the good he was. He didn’t look at Jason. He didn’t talk to Jason. He went out of his way to pretend that Jason didn’t exist, even though they had all their meals together and Jason was forced to attend half of Tim’s training sessions.

He wasn’t sure why they were called _training_ sessions. Tim was downright deadly with a bo staff in his hands, and every session ended with his opponents on the floor. Sometimes they were still groaning. Usually they were still and silent.

Usually, Ra’s smiled at Tim with all his teeth, his lime green eyes glittering with satisfaction. Usually, Jason left the training hall with a burning desire to throw up.

It hadn’t even been a week.

Jason stared at his stupid dessert and fought the urge to cry. He was _Robin_. He was stronger than this. He wasn’t a meek, simpering hostage. Ra’s had threatened him for Tim’s compliance – he never said _Jason_ had to behave.

He channeled up his courage – it came easily, helped along by frustration and seething annoyance – and swept his plate off the table. It hit the floor with a ringing crash, shattering into a multitude of tiny pieces and halting all conversation at the table.

“Oops,” Jason said.

Ra’s turned towards him, lifting a single, pale eyebrow, and Jason glared back, crossing his arms, _daring_ him to do something about it.

Ra’s turned away from him. “Timothy,” he said, his tone sickening, and Jason turned to see his brother rising from his seat and –

The vicious backhand sent him sprawling out of his chair to land on broken ceramic, and Jason sucked in a startled breath, too stunned to shout.

He ignored the shards biting into his fingers and the throbbing burn across his cheek as he slowly levered upright again. Tim had resumed his seat and his dinner, still not looking at Jason. Ra’s smiled, soft and malicious. Jason sat silently in his chair and curled his fingers into fists as blood pooled in his hands.

The dinner continued without another word.

* * *

No one gave him anything to wrap his bleeding hands, and Jason was forced to tear strips off his plain black robes to create makeshift bandages. His fingers were trembling, but he couldn’t tell if it was due to rage or fear.

There was a vivid bruise stretching across his left cheek, dark purple and extremely sore.

Jason tightened his hands into fists and ignored the prickling in his eyes.

He was Robin. He could get out of here. He had to get out of here. Tim was – Tim wasn’t being very helpful right now, and Jason couldn’t get them both out of this creepy underground base if Tim refused to even _look_ at him.

Jason would get out and call Damian. Damian would know what to do.

He tightened the wrappings on his hands one last time before he made for the windowsill. He had been good at free-running long before Bruce picked him up, and while the sandstone of the League base was not the same as the brick and metal of Gotham’s streets, the principle held. He could pick his way down the wall and drop down into the courtyard. It was another forty steps to the outer walls, and then he’d been in the mountains, and he didn’t know what he was going to do from there, but at least he wouldn’t be a hostage anymore.

And if he wasn’t here, then maybe Tim could escape.

Jason had taken ten steps before he realized that the courtyard was eerily silent. There was no moonlight, but Jason could see shifting shadows in the darkness, whispers of movements all around him. He stilled, fists tightening until his wounds scraped painfully against the rough bandages.

“So the gutter rat isn’t as stupid as he looks,” Ra’s said, cold and condescending.

Too many to fight. Too many to fight and win, anyway, but Jason could still make them work for it – he was tired of playing hostage and Ra’s couldn’t seriously hurt him, not if he wanted Tim to keep working for him.

Green eyes shone in the darkness.

“I think twenty strikes,” Ra’s mused, his voice echoing around the courtyard, “To teach a lesson.”

“If the lesson is to shut up, I doubt _you_ can claim to teach me anything,” Jason snarled.

A moment of brief, singing tension.

“Thirty strikes,” Ra’s said finally, “Timothy.”

Jason momentarily forgot how to breathe.

“Ra’s,” Tim started, an unidentifiable emotion in his tone, but he cut off almost immediately. Jason stared around the circle, straining his eyes to try and distinguish any movements, but he was still taken by surprise when his arms were grabbed and forced to the ground, locked into chains that didn’t even have an inch of give.

He snarled again, struggling against the chains, and hissed when someone sliced through his robes, leaving his back bare against the stinging night air.

“Perhaps this will teach the gutter rat to mind his manners,” Ra’s said, and Jason itched with the urge to break his nose, “You can take the child out of the filth, but you can never take the filth out of the child. Remember that, Timothy.”

“Yes, my lord,” Tim said from right behind him, his tone blank. Jason flinched away from the dead voice, but there was nowhere to go. The chains forced him to kneel and Tim merely stepped to the side when Jason twisted to try and face him.

Jason opened his mouth again, intending to tell Ra’s exactly where he could stuff his elitist comments, but his mouth snapped shut as a stinging strike impacted high on his back.

“One,” Tim said.

Jason inhaled, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Two,” Tim said.

His fingers tightened on his shackles.

“Three.”

Jason knew that Tim wasn’t Damian.

“Four.”

He knew that Tim had no moral compunctions against hurting him.

“Five.”

He had the scars to prove it.

“Six.”

But this wasn’t a spar, or training, or even Jason accidentally startling Tim and ending up with a knife graze.

“Seven.”

This wasn’t a lesson, this wasn’t a warning, or any carefully calculated strike.

“Eight.”

This was _punishment_.

“Nine.”

Jason was far from home, surrounded by enemies, and his _brother_ was _torturing_ him.

“Ten.”

He made it to fifteen before he started screaming. Tim’s strikes didn’t waver once, not when they broke skin, not when Jason started sobbing, not when he slumped against the ground, wavering arms unable to hold himself up.

The quiet recitation was the only proof that Jason was not alone. Jason clung to that, to his brother’s voice, even as the pain seared across every one of his senses, building higher and higher, growing past unbearable and into excruciating.

“Thirty,” Tim said softly, and Jason let the lurking darkness swallow him whole.

* * *

“You don’t have to do this,” she said softly, half-hidden in the shadows as they ticked down the last minute in their short wait before they could put their plan into action. “The boy is two floors down, and he has only one guard. You can get him out easily. Ra’s doesn’t care about him.”

He said nothing.

“Damian, you –”

“I came here for both my brothers,” Damian said coldly, “And I’m not leaving without them.”

She was silent for a long, stretching moment. Damian waited for the censure, the lecture, the muttered words about him being a sentimental fool. Instead, his mother stepped forward and traced the edge of his jaw. “Your father’s son,” she said softly, and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t sound like an insult.

“Very well,” she stepped back, turning towards the door, “You have ten minutes to get to the Pit.”

“I know,” he said, and followed her out of the little alcove. It wasn’t the best plan, but Batman was still off-planet, Damian himself had only gotten back two days ago, and he’d stationed his allies at a few other League bases. He wanted to go to Jason, find his younger brother and get him out, and something rankled inside of him at the thought of trusting his mother to fulfill her part of the plan, but the greatest threat in this base was Ra’s al Ghul, and he had Tim.

The halls were mostly empty, his path cleared by his mother’s operatives, and Damian arrived at the lowermost level with a minute to spare. He slipped into the shadows, choking out any hostile he came across as he ventured deeper into the cavern, following the sound of voices.

“You said that if I chose to be your right hand, his fate was _mine_ ,” a low, angry voice snarled, “You can’t –”

“Can’t? _Can’t_? I can do anything I so choose, Timothy, and I think you forget your place,” Ra’s said coldly, “I’ve changed my mind. It’s so much more satisfying to watch you break this way.”

“I won’t do it,” Tim snapped.

Ra’s laughed, and the sound sent chills down Damian’s spine. “You will, little detective, but your defiance is amusing,” he said, cool and sinuous, “I wonder how long before you beg leave to drown him in the Pit.”

“ _Never_.”

“Never is a long time, Timothy,” Ra’s said, low and sibilant, “And longer still when you don’t stay dead.” Silence. “Stalling for time is pointless, little detective. Who do you imagine will come for you? Batman?”

The derision in his voice was clear. Tim must’ve made some kind of expression, because Ra’s laughed again, “For the gutter rat? He’s already picked up the circus brat to replace him. Face the facts, Timothy, no one will come for either of you.”

“Do you never tire of the sound of your own voice, Grandfather?”

The operatives surrounding Ra’s could clearly be divided into three categories – the first were those completely loyal, the second were those his mother had managed to subvert over the years, and the third glanced between the two groups and realized that this was the time to make some rapid choices about which future they preferred. Ra’s al Ghul gave Damian a cold, seething glare, his green eyes poisonous, while Tim stared at him, stunned – wide eyes a shade greener than the last time Damian had seen him.

“What are you doing here?” Ra’s snarled, “I told you that if you left, you could never come back.”

“And I told you that my family is off-limits,” Damian retorted, “I guess disappointment runs in the al Ghul line.”

Narrowed eyes and bulging veins. “I can’t believe your mother raised such a stupid child,” Ra’s snapped, “Did you really think you could fight your way out of this compound by yourself?”

Damian raised an eyebrow, his fingers tightening around his sword. “Who said I needed to fight?”

Ra’s finally realized that a good half of his soldiers were making no move to flank Damian. Damian took advantage of his preoccupation to flash a hand signal at Tim, a Bat creation that essentially boiled down to _get behind me now_.

Father had created it the year Damian had joined him, and had used it quite frequently ever since.

Tim didn’t move, still staring at Damian like he wasn’t sure if he was actually there. Damian made the hand signal again, and added a scowl for good measure. Tim finally jerked forward, slipping past two assassins before they could move to block him.

“Jason?” he asked under his breath as he twisted behind Damian’s shoulder.

“On the plane,” Damian muttered back. Hopefully, anyway.

“Timothy,” Ra’s stepped forward, green eyes flaring, “Do you really think you’ll be able to get away from me?”

“I think you’re shortly going to have greater problems than stalking my brother,” Damian said, edging back towards the door, “You really shouldn’t have pissed off Mother.”

The uneasy détente held, assassins staring at each other instead of Damian and Tim, and Damian managed to shove his younger brother out of the room and slam the door closed behind them. “Plane’s on the roof,” he said tersely. It had been a nerve-wracking test of the Batplane’s stealth mode.

His mother was waiting on the roof – Jason was hovering in the plane doorway and shooting her suspicious looks. Damian motioned Tim towards the plane and stopped in front of her.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and she smiled and curled a hand over the one he had on his hilt.

“You’re my son,” she said softly, “And every day I regret what happened six years ago. What I let happen.”

“Do you really think you can wrest control from him?” Damian asked.

His mother laughed. “No,” she said, “But I can certainly remind him that he still has a living heir.” Her smile shifted to something darker, and Damian was abruptly reminded of why they called her the Demon’s Daughter. “Go. Get your brothers back home safely.”

* * *

Jason nearly collapsed into his arms when Damian stepped inside the plane, and flinched with a sharp cry when Damian tightened his grip. “What happened?” he asked, stepping back.

“Back,” Jason murmured under his breath, “Hurts.”

“Are you injured anywhere?” Damian asked Tim, who shook his head sharply and took a step back, until he was nearly pressing himself into the wall. “Get us into the air.” He led Jason to the back of the plane and pushed his younger brother to take a seat before slowly drawing away the top of his robe.

Welts crisscrossed his back, inflamed an angry red, and Damian sucked in a sharp inhale. “What happened?” he asked again, fetching the analgesic cream.

Jason tightened his hands into fists where they rested in his lap. “I tried to escape,” he whispered, flinching away from the first cool touch of cream on his back before gradually relaxing. Damian counted each welt as he continued his work, and the tight coil of rage in his chest was an inferno when he reached _thirty_.

Jason slumped forward when Damian finished treating his wounds, curling away from Damian and squirming into a comfortable position on the seats. “Jason?” Damian asked quietly, resting a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“I just want to go home,” Jason said, his voice small.

Damian squeezed his shoulder before straightening up and heading to the front of the plane. Tim was in the pilot’s seat, staring out the windshield, and he made no move to acknowledge Damian as he took the co-pilot’s seat.

They sat in silence for a long, stretching moment before Tim spoke. “Where are you dropping me off?” he asked, his voice dispassionate and level.

Damian slowly raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to the Cave,” he responded. Tim flinched at that, curling further away from Damian.

Damian stared at him, cataloguing the pallor of his skin and the minute trembling in his fingers, before he asked, “Were you expecting something else?”

Tim finally turned to look at him, his eyes narrowed and flashing an eerie green, “I wasn’t expecting you to come at all.”

“Did you think I was going to leave you there?” Damian snarled, his temper rising despite himself.

“Not Jason, no.”

Damian exhaled, and forced his fingers to uncurl. This was his own fault, he reminded himself. He could not fault Tim for failing to respond to a relationship that existed solely in Damian’s head, forged from guilt and cemented in failure.

“I came,” Damian said slowly, “To rescue _both_ my brothers.”

Tim laughed, a harsh, unamused bark as his expression twisted to something that was half-disbelieving and half-fatalistic. “Damian, you’ve made it clear for six years that I’m not, and have never been your brother. You used every opportunity to belittle me before I died, and you’ve treated me like a ticking time bomb ever since I came back to Gotham.”

Yes, Damian had. He failed to entirely hide the wince when he remembered his first confrontation with the Red Hood.

“I’m sorry,” Damian said, and watched Tim’s eyes widen in shock. “I was wrong.”

“What,” Tim breathed out, more an exclamation than a question.

“I was wrong,” Damian repeated, feeling it tear at wounds that had never truly healed, “I was being selfish.”

“Selfish,” Tim echoed.

Damian closed his eyes and slumped further into his chair, running a hand through his hair before sighing. “Selfish,” he admitted, “Because if you weren’t my brother, if you were lost to Pit madness, then it meant I hadn’t failed you twice over. It meant that I hadn’t _left_ you with Ra’s al Ghul. Because if you were losing control, if you lashed out at Jason or Richard… If _you_ hurt _them_ …then it was okay that I hurt you.”

Tim stared at him, face blank and eyes shuttered.

“Because then I could blame how I treated you on the Pit. Because then it wouldn’t be my fault,” Damian said quietly, “So yes. I was selfish.”

“The Pit,” Tim murmured, eyes narrowing on Damian’s face, “You –” He stared straight into Damian’s eyes. “I thought your eyes were green because of Talia.”

“My eyes were blue,” Damian corrected, “And then I returned to the League and spent a year there before realizing I wanted out. Ra’s al Ghul does not relinquish his soldiers easily, and there were…complications.”

“And you returned, fresh from the Pit,” Tim whispered, “To see that your father had replaced you with another child.”

“I was wrong,” Damian repeated, straightening up to stare at Tim, “You’ve had significantly more exposure to the Pit than I have, and you’ve never tried to kill any member of the family. I was unfair to you, because I was expecting you to act like I had, because I _wanted_ you to act like I had, as though that would excuse what I’d done.”

Emotions crossed Tim’s face, too quick and too volatile to pin down, and Damian watched as Tim exhaled sharply and turned away, bowing his head until his face was hidden by his long bangs. “I guess you got what you wanted in the end,” Tim said sardonically, like he wasn’t curling up defensively, “I _did_ hurt Jason.”

Thirty welts. Thin and deep. A pattern of bruising that avoided major organs. It could certainly have been caused by thirty strikes from a bo staff.

“Six years ago,” Damian said, his voice quiet and level, “I told my grandfather I was going to leave. I didn’t want to be his heir. I was going back to Gotham. My grandfather ordered my mother to teach me respect.” Green eyes glinted behind a curtain of black and white hair. “She refused.”

Tim uncurled slightly, his gaze settling warily on Damian. “My grandfather had apparently cloned me,” Damian said, and he could still feel the ache, the hollow in his heart after all these years, “And in front of his inner circle, in front of my mother, in front of everyone, I died as someone wearing my face twisted my own sword into my heart.”

Tim stared at him.

“If you’d refused,” Damian said quietly, “Someone else would. Someone who didn’t care how badly they’d hurt him.”

“It’s my fault he was even there,” Tim said hollowly, “Ra’s wants _me_ – I dragged him into this, I should’ve never come back to Gotham, never –”

“If you insist on applying blame through faulty reasoning, then the fault is _mine_ ,” Damian snapped. Tim jerked his head up, disconcerted. “Ra’s al Ghul only set his sights on you because of _me_. He never would’ve searched for a new heir if I hadn’t deserted him. You wouldn’t even have been on his radar if I hadn’t gone back to Father.”

“You are _both_ idiots,” Jason grumbled from behind them, shoving into the cockpit and jostling Tim so that he pitched out of his chair with a startled cry, spilling into Damian’s lap. Jason clambered on top of him as Damian hesitantly curled his arms around his younger brother. “The only person at fault is the insane, paranoid megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur.”

Jason settled on top of Tim, flopping down with his arms outstretched and only a minor grimace. Damian swallowed, and tightened his grip on Tim as the younger man shuddered, his breath hitching.

“You’re my brother,” Damian whispered into Tim’s hair, “And I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.” Jason’s arms curled around Damian’s neck and he let his little brother press his chin on top of his head as they sandwiched Tim between them.

“Family sticks together,” Jason murmured.

Tim shivered more violently at that, fingers curled into Damian’s uniform, and Damian let out a slow breath and held him tighter.

* * *

Dick fluttered between the den and the kitchen, unwilling to let Alfred or his brothers out of his sight. He had been so _scared_ – he’d had the horrible thought that Tim and Jay were _gone_ , like his parents were gone, and he’d been so helpless. He hadn’t even been able to reach anyone until Damian had returned from his mission, and by that time Jason had been missing for four days and Tim wasn’t picking up his phone or answering his door and he knew what the worry lines on Alfred’s face meant, he wasn’t a child.

And then Damian had left too, flat out refusing to take Dick with him, and Dick thought he’d lost his entire family all over again – what if Bruce didn’t return from his mission, what if it was the circus all over again, what if Dick was cursed –

But they’d returned, all of them, and they were in the den and Dick hovered in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.

Jason was stretched out on the couch, face down, either asleep or getting there. Tim was curled up in an armchair, face pale and eyes greener than Dick remembered, looking much smaller than Dick was used to. And Damian was astonishingly in the armchair right next to Tim, watching him with an expression that held a lot more concern than his usual sneer.

And perhaps the most surprising of them all – Tim was wearing a Nightwing hoodie. A _Nightwing_ hoodie. One that was clearly too big to be his, because he was drowning in it.

Dick remembered leaving his Nightwing action figure at one of Tim’s safehouses and getting it returned with the head snapped off.

Dick darted back to the kitchen, checked to make sure Alfred was still making dinner, and cartwheeled back to the den. He paused for a moment on the threshold before leaping across the room, doing a handspring off the coffee table, and landing on the back of Tim’s armchair before he dropped into the man’s lap.

Green eyes blinked at him. Dick wiggled into the warmth of the hoodie. “You look like you need a hug,” he said, and proceeded to do just that, curling up against Tim.

One arm slowly coiled around him.

Dick gave Damian a pointed stare over Tim’s shoulder. Damian blinked at him, narrowed his eyes, and made a soundless growl, but levered out of the chair.

“I’ll check on Alfred,” he muttered, pausing to squeeze Tim’s shoulder. Dick glared – that was not a _hug_ – but Tim shivered and leaned further into the touch, so Dick settled unhappily. Damian paused to ruffle Jason’s hair – getting a sleepy mumble – before leaving the room.

Dick stayed sprawled over his older brother, determined to help. He hadn’t been able to protect them, he couldn’t find them when they were missing, or even help rescue them once they’d been found. He knew he was the youngest, but this was his _family_.

He would do anything to make sure he never lost his family again.

**Author's Note:**

> It's thin on the plot, and I'm not entirely happy with it, but these are all intended to be explorations.
> 
> And the more I think about it, the more I really want to write a Court of Owls storyline in this universe.


End file.
